Satellite in a Sweater
by Zarianwen
Summary: After an unexpected situation, Star begins to see Danny Fenton in a new light.


She blamed her sweater.

Her favorite, V-neck, coral pink, warm-but-still-fashionable, _cashmere_ sweater that complemented her fair complexion so well even Paulina had audibly approved the first time she wore it to school.

As the last of her screaming classmates bolted out the door, ignoring her desperate cry—"Wait—help! I'm stuck!"—she tugged on the snagged sweater with all her might and didn't even try to hold back a short sob of terror as the expertly woven fabric refused to tear and set her free. She didn't even care if she ruined it; Jim Larson had already splattered her with red paint when the ghost had burst into the art room. Her sweater was doomed.

She couldn't help but think, kneeling on the ground beside the overturned bookshelf, trying in vain to rip herself free from one fateful old nail in said bookshelf while a giant green velociraptor turned its head to meet her eyes and stop her heart cold in her chest, that she was doomed too.

Until.

"Star!"

The velociraptor charged with a blood-curdling roar, but before it had taken even two steps something had slammed into its head and sent it crashing into the first period pottery shelf.

Wide eyes full of frightened tears, she watched in utter stupefaction as the one and only Danny Fenton, geek extraordinaire, dropped the heavy chair he'd just wielded to race forward and drop immediately at her side.

"Are you alright?" he demanded, shocking her with the uncharacteristic determination in his voice and eyes.

Star stammered a response, still trying wrap her mind around the image of _Danny Fenton_ smacking a ghost dinosaur in the face hard enough to knock it over. "M-my sweater is snagged, I can't—"

But an earsplitting screech cut off her explanation; the now-angry ghost rose thrashing from the broken pieces of clay, further demolishing the pottery shelf. It's razor-sharp talons clicked loudly against the hard floor as it regained its footing and turned its blazing red eyes upon them, needle-like teeth dripping with glowing green saliva.

She screamed bloody murder and yanked one last time on her sweater; the threads finally gave way with a joyous chorus of sound—_riiiiiip!—_but it was too late, the ghost was upon them, launching itself straight at the crouching Danny—

Who spun around with near inhuman speed and shot it in the chest with a small ecto-gun he had apparently whipped out of nowhere. Once again the ghost was thrown back, slamming into the paint-slicked floor and sliding another couple of feet.

Standing, Danny lifted her by the arm and practically threw her toward the door, shouting, "Run!" as the raptor jumped lithely to its feet. Its claws scrabbled for purchase on the slippery floor as it swung around to follow them, scaly back arching with fury. As Star took a running leap over a broken chair, suddenly from between the raptor's deadly rows of teeth a brilliant green light began to shine.

Danny snatched her by her ruined sweater and threw the both of them to the ground just as an explosive ray of green shot from the raptor's mouth and blasted a hole in the wall right where Star's head had been.

Heart thumping wildly, Star didn't even care that Danny had pinned her underneath him, shielding her with his own body. She simply followed his lead as he once again grabbed her and pulled her up, shoving her toward the open door that was now oh so close, so close that if she leapt for it she could reach it one bound.

"You can make it!" he encouraged.

Star let out a sharp cry as Danny pushed her roughly away, propelling her forward the last few feet. She turned unsteadily back at the last second to see the ghost-raptor spin, swinging its long, heavy tail to land a swift blow in Danny's side and send him flying.

"Danny!" she cried, but before she could move a strong hand grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her from the room.

She whipped her head around to see that it was none other than Vice-Principal Lancer, and he was speedily pulling her away from the art room as the sound of another explosive ghost ray filled the air. Too little, too late, the ghost alarms finally went off, filling the hall with blinking red lights and piercing whistles.

"Mr. Lancer, Danny Fenton's still in there!" she shrieked over the din. As Lancer opened his mouth to reply, he was suddenly cut off as the velociraptor let loose a deafening, screeching roar of pain that caused every human being in the hallway to throw their hands over their ears and cringe.

Stopped in their tracks, Lancer and Star turned to look back at the art room doorway; a flash of white light spilled forth, followed quickly by a thunderous crash. It sounded as if the teacher's huge desk had been thrown into a wall.

"We can't just leave him!" Star protested wildly, although she had no idea what they could to help do or even why she suddenly cared about Danny Fenton.

_Whaddyou mean you don't know why? He just saved your life!_ screamed the voice inside her head. _Even if it is hard to believe that Danny Fenton, of all people—_

"I'll go back in and try to distract it until help arrives," Lancer bravely announced, drawing himself up to his full height and puffing out his chest. (His shaking knees, sending visible vibrations though his sizable belly, somewhat marred the heroic effect he was going for.)

But Lancer's bravery went unneeded as, with one last resounding thud, the art room suddenly went quiet. The ghost alarms continued to blare through the hallway, nearly loud enough to drown out the sound of Star's own hammering pulse in her ears.

"Danny?" she called warily, taking a hesitant step toward the art room. Other students carefully began to approach the same room from either side of the hallway. "Danny?" she called again, more loudly this time. Another flare of white light beamed out of the door into the hall, and Star hurried forward with jittery, anxious steps toward the eerily quiet room.

Peeking cautiously around the doorframe, Star was shocked to see that the ghostly velociraptor had vanished. And where was Danny?

She stepped inside and called his name again, hands held tight against her chest as if she expected the ghost to jump out again out of nowhere.

She nearly leapt out of her skin with surprise when a head of black hair popped up over an upended table with a short, "Right here, Star!"

Pressing her hand against her racing heart, she quickly blinked to hide her surprise. Now relatively sure that the danger was over, she snapped, "What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?"

He gave a short chuckle before settling back down on the other side of the table, disappearing from view. "Come over here for a minute," he said.

She obeyed with a snobbish pout, knowing she should feel annoyed to be taking orders from the resident freak. In all reality, as she stepped carefully over the rubble that was their art room, she was worried. Why wasn't he getting up? Was he hurt? Were his bones broken? Had the ghost snapped his spine in half? Was he inches from a wretched death all at the expense of the tragically beautiful flaxen-haired young woman who'd so ironically forgotten she even had art with him in the first place?

As she stepped around the table she saw it was none of these things. Well, at least not the spine snapped in half, tragic death things, anyway.

He was leaning back against the table, legs spread out before him as one hand wrapped around his middle and the other held a sealed Fenton thermos. As she entered his line of view he set the thermos down and sat forward, grimacing with pain as he tried to shrug out of his Casper High jacket.

"What?" she demanded.

He raised an eyebrow as he looked up at her. "You might want to put this on," he said cautiously, successfully removing the jacket from his left arm.

For a moment she didn't understand. Then she realized what he meant just as her brain finally registered the unusual draft she could feel on her midsection. In horror, she looked down at herself only to realize that half of her sweater had been torn away, revealing so much as the corner of her periwinkle polka-dotted bra.

She let out an earsplitting shriek that rivaled the ghost-raptor's. She snatched Danny's hooded jacked and threw it on, her cheeks suddenly on fire.

"You pervert!" she screamed, zipping the jacket up as far as it would go.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault!" Danny argued, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture that did little to calm her down. "It's not like _I_ ripped your sweater!"

"You should have told me right when it ripped!"

"I was kind of busy saving your life, _sorry!_"

Letting out a rather un-pretty cry of frustration, Star pivoted in place and turned her back to him, burying her face in her hands.

"I can't believe this!" she whined. "You know how many people in the hallway probably saw? Oh—Holy heaven, Mr. _Lancer_ must have seen!" She squealed a long, disgusted squeal, repeatedly stomping her small feet in place and shuddering as if ants were crawling up her back.

Danny opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted as more people began to fill the room, calling their names.

"Staaaaaaaaaar!" wailed a familiar voice. Paulina launched herself at her friend, completely ignoring the boy on the floor, and locked her tan arms around Star's neck like an octopus strangling its meal. "Jim said you were left behind and I was so _wooooorrieeeeeeeeed!_"

"I almost diiiiiiiied!" Star wailed right back as she threw her arms around her friend (although she had a bit of trouble sucking in enough oxygen to do so).

Behind Paulina came Kwan and a gaggle of other, more popular students, each one dramatically crying out their concern over their blond compatriot. Close behind these came Danny's friends, Sam and Tucker. Star couldn't help but feel a little snubbed as they completely disregarded her and instead crouched down by Danny.

"Dude, what happened?" Tucker demanded.

Danny gave a crooked smile and a dismissive wave of his hand. "Oh, the usual. Just a ghost. I, uh, helped Star get out when her sweater got caught on the bookshelf back there." He jabbed his thumb in the general direction of the shelf. "But everything's fine now, I got the ghost in the thermos."

"Where did you even get it?" Star piped up, having listened to Danny's explanation. When the geek trio turned to look up at her, she clarified. "The thermos, I mean. Not the ghost."

"I keep one with me everywhere I go," Danny answered easily. "A thermos—not a ghost." He attempted a smile that no one returned. "This one was in my paint supply box." He picked up the thermos and shook it.

Behind Star, Kwan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You keep a random Fenton thermos with your paint?" he asked, incredulous.

"Luckily for you," Sam defended. "If it wasn't for Danny's 'random thermos,' that ghost could still be rampaging through the school!"

"It's still weird," Paulina huffed with a toss of her long dark hair, having released Star from her death-grip-of-concern.

"You keep a gun with you too?" Star queried further.

Danny shrugged, wincing at the movement as free his hand flew to his ribs. "Just a small prototype ecto-gun my parents made. It usually fits in my pocket."

Paulina rolled her eyes as Kwan said, almost good-naturedly, "Figures you'd carry around weird stuff like that, Fenton, with your folks being ghost hunters and all."

"It's not weird," Sam once again interjected, her violet eyes turning steely. "It's smart. If any of you had half a brain you'd carry around ghost weapons too."

"Yeah," Tucker agreed, "with how many ghost attacks we get at this school, we should all be packing."

"Guys, it's fine," Danny said, moving as if to stand. He gasped suddenly and stopped, eyes shutting tightly.

"Danny!" Sam cried, immediately forgetting her argument with the popular kids in favor of fluttering her hands worriedly over Danny's form. "Is it your ribs? How bad is it?"

"Nothing, nothing, it's fine; I probably just bruised a rib or something," Danny tried to say dismissively, but the instant Sam's hand put pressure on his side he let out a sharp yelp.

"That's not 'nothing,' Dude," Tucker disagreed with a shake of his head.

Despite the fact that he was the injured one, Danny flashed his friends an apologetic smile. "Okay. I might have cracked something."

"Hopefully not completely _broken_," Sam muttered darkly.

"The ghost hit him pretty hard with its tail," Star informed the goth, taking it upon herself to say what, apparently, Danny wouldn't say for himself. "It looked like it probably hurt pretty bad."

Sam turned back to Danny with an accusatory look. "It's 'nothing,' huh?"

He smiled sheepishly.

As the room began to fill with adults—Miss Harris (the art teacher), Lancer, the school nurse, a couple paramedics, and eventually Danny's insane parents (ecto-bazookas blazing), Star was swept away from her friends to be thoroughly examined for injury and emotional trauma, as well as to be questioned at least a million times by each adult on exactly what had happened. Danny, similarly, was swamped by people but was taken away by the paramedics before he could be thoroughly interrogated.

They let Star go home early after she had been officially declared traumatized enough to leave but healthy enough not to need medical attention. She drove herself home in the cute little red Volkswagen Bug her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday.

She didn't realize how completely wiped out she was until after her parents, having been called by Mr. Lancer, finally released her from their concerned clutches. She trudged up the curving wooden stairs to her room and dropped onto her bed like an exhausted sack of potatoes.

_Nothing like a near death experience to wear you out_, she thought.

For a full minute she just lay there, cheek pressed against her plush panda teddy bear, and let the tension drain from her body.

When she remembered her mother's question, a faint blush rose on her cheeks as her lips turned down in an embarrassed pout. _"Where did you get this jacket?"_

Star rolled over onto her back with a sigh, draping her arm across her eyes and resting her other hand on her stomach.

_My sweater_, she mourned. With a deep sense of regret, she realized she was going to have to chuck it. Her favorite sweater. Her stupid sweater.

And she'd looked so pretty that day too, before all Hell had broken loose. Her hair had fallen just so perfectly into place, her eyeliner had gone on so smooth and even, her eyelashes spread out to their fullest and her sweater bringing out the perfect petal-pink of her lips.

_But that's not important right now_, she reminded herself, trying to refocus. Paulina would cry, "Heresy!" at the thought, but Star had other things to think about than her looks at the moment.

Danny Fenton had saved her life. There was no denying it; a scrawny little nerd had rescued her from becoming a dead dinosaur's newest chew toy.

_Except_, she thought, _he's not actually all that scrawny._

Star hadn't paid any attention to Danny Fenton and his friends for almost the entirety of the past two years they'd spent at Casper High together. She'd made the mistake of going out with that Foley kid freshman year _(Ugh, don't remind me!)_ but since then she'd barely even noticed Danny, Tucker, Sam, or any of the other kids Paulina and Dash had declared a waste of time.

She hadn't noticed, for example, that Danny Fenton had finally hit his growth spurt until that very day.

Throughout freshman year Danny had remained pretty short, with boys like Dash easily towering over him, and Star had gotten the idea locked into her head that he would somehow remain wimpy and small forever. It didn't help that Dash could knock Danny around with almost no effort whatsoever. But as she'd watched him being lifted painfully from the floor of the art room, she'd been stunned to notice that he was actually taller than the female paramedic. Tall as Mr. Lancer, tall as Dash. She further realized she hadn't seen Dash beat him up for almost a full year.

When had she gotten so clueless? The changes in Danny were so obvious that day, after he had saved her life and she actually stopped to look, _really_ look at him. He wasn't scrawny. Previously hidden beneath his jacket but then revealed by the short sleeves of his T-shirt, Danny's arms had a distinct layer of muscle on them that shocked her almost more than his height. True, he was no wannabe body-builder like Dash or Kwan or some of the other football jocks, but Star had closely examined the movements of his arm and there was no mistaking the noticeable sculpting of well-toned muscle beneath his skin.

_Hold on a sec_, she interrupted herself. _Did you actually just use "well-toned" and "Danny Fenton" in the same thought?_

She had.

Suddenly Star snatched up her panda teddy and covered her face with it as yet another blush crept up her cheeks.

_Oh please, you've gotta be kidding me,_ she pleaded with herself. _You are _**so **_not blushing over that freak Danny Fenton!_

That freak who had saved her life. That freak who, like Sam and Tucker had argued, was smart for carrying ghost weapons around with him in their spirit-infested city. That freak who had given her his own jacket to cover her immodesty. That freak who had played down his own injury, who had stayed behind when everybody else ran for safety, just for her. That freak who had _saved her life!_

"Why couldn't it have just been the ghost boy?" she lamented aloud, moaning. She could have gotten over it if _he_ had been the one to save her; Danny Phantom saved lives all the time. She expected it of _him._

But Danny _Fenton? _Even the similarity between their names was laughable. She wasn't going to get over this shock any time soon.

Lifting the panda from her face to stare into its adorable eyes with a look of intense concentration, Star came to one overall conclusion.

She blamed her sweater.


End file.
